


Nothin' Like It

by Fenix21



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Brotherly Bonding, Curtain Fic, F/M, First Child, post season 6/7 au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-18
Updated: 2015-05-18
Packaged: 2018-03-31 02:19:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3960700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fenix21/pseuds/Fenix21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam finds out he's going to be a dad...things don't go quite as planned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Incantation67](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Incantation67/gifts).
  * Inspired by [HOME (part 2)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3787852) by [Incantation67](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Incantation67/pseuds/Incantation67). 



> This is for my lovely friend and muse, Incantation67, who has so graciously let me fill in the missing part to her lovely story. Thank you! And I hope I did it justice. :)
> 
> In order to get any kind of feel for where the boys are right now and what the magnificent Walker is really like, you might need to read her series first. This works by itself to a degree, but you'll enjoy it more having read the other.

'Dean?' You, uh, got a minute?' 

Dean flipped the grimoire he was helping Sam catalogue closed in his lap and looked at Walker over the top of his reading glasses. Lisa had insisted he get them, and though it rubbed him a little wrong to think he was old enough to need them, he could still hit a bullseye at fifty yards without them, and she said they were sexy. Like, hot librarian sexy. So, it really wasn't so bad.

'Yeah, Blue, what's up?'

He watched his sister-in-law come in the room slowly, shoulders a little hunched, casting furtive glances into the corners like she was waiting for someone to pop out at her. She still had her bag over her shoulder which meant she'd come straight from her job at the university. In here. To talk to him.

'Everything okay?' he asked.

'Yeah. Yeah, of course, just—is Sam here?'

Dean shook his head. 'Uh-uh. Went to get us some supplies. Should be back in a half-hour or so.'

'Good,' she said looking almost relieved. 'That's good.'

Dean pulled his feet off the table and leaned forward. 'Walker, what's going on?'

'Nothing!' she said, a little too forcefully, smile too bright and brittle at the edges. She edged further into the room and slid into a chair, dropping her bag at her feet. 

'Uh-huh,' Dean said slowly and waited.

'I just want to—really I just wanted to ask you a question,'

Dean set the grimoire aside, pulled off his glasses and tried for a relaxed smile, pulling out the charm he used to always reserve for traumatized victims he had to interview. He wasn't nearly as good at it as Sam, but it still seemed to do the trick most of the time. God knew, Walker looked like she was wound tighter than the custom variable springs on his Baby.

'You weren't this nervous when you asked me for Sam's hand in marriage,' he teased gently. 'Spill it.'

Walker laughed softly, high and light and not like her at all. She tangled her fingers together in her lap and kept her eyes trained on them.

'Does Sam like kids?' she blurted out.

Dean rocked back, taken a little by surprise at the odd question.

'Like them? I'm not—.' He frowned a little in thought. 'They make him nervous as hell, I know that. But he's never really expressed an opinion. It's never come up.'

'No, it's hasn't,' Walker said, almost to herself.

'He's good with Ben,' Dean offered, seeing the frown pulling at Walker's brow.

'Ben's practically an adult.'

'Not to Sam, but okay,' Dean conceded.

'I mean like little kids…babies?'

Dean scrubbed a hand over his mouth, thoroughly confused. 'I don't think Sam's ever even held a baby. Except maybe…oh, yeah. There was this one case. I _baby_ Shifter. Can you imagine that? And I think he—.'

Dean's brain ground to a halt.

He wasn't always super quick on the uptake, but he always got there eventually. He took in the way Walker's arms had curled around her middle, the miserably uneasy look in her usually bright eyes, and the subject of the conversation.

'You're pregnant,' he said.

'What?' Walker paled.

'Aren't you?' Dean asked, suddenly unsure on this foreign ground. This wasn't something you guessed at with women. That much he knew, because if you guessed wrong? You didn't want to be around for the fallout.

'I—how did you know?'

'Hunch.' Dean breathed a sigh of relief. 'So…congratulations? Have you told Sam? I'm guessing no with the line of questioning here, but—.'

'We haven't actually talked about it,' Walker said, hugging herself tighter. 'At all.'

'Oh.' Dean sat back a little. 'So, this isn't…?'

'No. We weren't trying. Weren't even thinking about it.'

'Uh-huh.' Dean waited and watched Walker's face contort in a myriad of expressions as her mind ran through a hundred dreaded possibilities. 'And you're worried about how he's going to react.'

'Yes.'

Dean nodded, understanding. 'Well, you don't really have a choice, right? I mean, eventually. Unless you're going to…'

'No!' Walker snapped. 'No. I couldn't do that.' She swallowed. 'But I don't know how to tell him either.'

'Just tell him,' Dean said. 'He'll deal. He's always does. He's good at that. It's that analytical brain of his. Sees the good and bad in everything.'

'That's what I'm afraid of,' she whispered. 'What if he sees more bad than good?'

'Walker,' Dean reached out a tentative hand to brush the back of Walker's. 'Bottom line? It's a baby. A life. There isn't anything bad about that.'

Walker's eyes went briefly wide, shone with tears, and she bit at her trembling bottom lip.

Dean grinned, slid back on the couch. 'Look at this. You've got _me_ going all chick-flick moment over this. Sam's gonna be a walk in the park. He'll love it.'

——

'Dean, what's wrong? Who's died?' Sam asked in his most serious tone as he stared at the bowl of salad Dean had just handed him from the refrigerator. 

'What? No one!' Dean groused. 'You're just always bitching that I don't do anything that isn't fried or swimming in grease or barbecue sauce. So…'

'So…salad,' Sam said slowly and then turned to the dish Lisa was removing from the oven. 'And glazed pork chops. Dean? What the hell's going on?'

Dean rolled his eyes. 'Nothing, Sammy. Just take the salad to the table and sit your ass down, okay?'

Sam huffed an irritated breath and did as he was told.

'Where's Walker?' Lisa asked as she plated the pork chops and passed them to Dean for the baked sweet potatoes and green beans. 

'Oh, she's coming. She was laying down for a few minutes. Said her stomach was bothering her,' Sam said.

'Oh?' Dean fought to keep his tone casual and face straight. Beside him, Lisa was smothering a grin behind the back of her hand. 

'Hey guys, hope I didn't hold up dinner,' Walker said as she came in the kitchen and immediately took the plates from Lisa to take to the table.

'Nope, right on time,' Dean said and followed Lisa and the last two plates to the table with a basket of warm rolls.

'Wow, this is really nice, Dean,' Walker complimented, looking over the slightly dressier than normal fare. 'What's the occasion?'

'That's what I said!' Sam joined, feeling vindicated by his wife's surprise.

'No, you asked who died,' Dean corrected and Walker laughed. 'No occasion, just felt like doing something a little special.'

He slid a look across the table at Walker, and she blanched, gave a tiny shake of her head. Dean just grinned and passed her the rolls.

Dinner went by quietly with the usual conversation, bits and pieces of flotsam from the outside world offered by Lisa who was volunteering at the local VA in town and teaching Yoga classes at the recreation center. Walker bemoaned the climbing tension levels in her classes as the end of year finals were coming and the students were getting antsy and tightly wound. Sam mentioned maybe needing a road trip to Kansas City to restock a couple of items he hadn't been able to find at their local supply place in town.

'Hey, how about we invite Charlie and Dora for barbecue next weekend,' Dean said. 'I kind of miss Scarface and the patter of her crazy feet running around this place.'

Sam raised an eyebrow. 'Patter of her feet?'

Dean shrugged, eyebrows waggling. 'Sure. She's a sweet kid. Makes enough noise for ten sometimes. I like her. Sue me.'

Walker had tensed at Sam's side, but Dean turned his casual gaze on her anyway. 'What about you, Blue? You okay with that? Won't interrupt your prep for finals or anything, will it?'

'Uh, n-no,' Walker stammered a little and Sam looked over at her, noticed her hands wringing at the napkin in her lap.

'Hey, you okay?' he asked softly as he slid an arm around her back and pulled her into his side. 

She nodded, biting down on her lip and casting a miserable look at Dean.

Dean smiled reassuringly and stood up to gather the plates. He put out a hand when Sam made to rise and help. 'Sit. I got dessert.'

Lisa helped dish out the roasted pears with dark chocolate melted in the center and bring them back to the table. Sam looked on in amazement, having expected some variation of pie. He took a bite and gave a tiny moan, licking chocolate from the corner of his mouth.

'Wow, Dean. You outdid yourself. These are amazing.'

'And healthy, too,' Dean added, forking up a bite and looking at it like he really wished it were pie, but…what the heck.

'About that…' Sam dabbed at his mouth with his napkin and looked pointedly at this brother. 'Are you okay?'

'Yeah, Sam, I'm fine. Why?'

Sam swept an arm to take in their just eaten meal and the out of character dessert. 'What's with the sudden new leaf in cooking? You're really worrying me, Dean. Is there something I should know?'

Dean shook his head. ' _I_ am fine, Sam.'

Sam didn't miss the emphasis and glanced around the table, eyes coming back to his wife, who was staring at her bowl, pear cooling in the molten pond of dark chocolate. 

'Walker, baby, everything okay?' Sam was suddenly hushed and worry was leaking through in his tone.

Walker grabbed his hand and gave him a huge smile that was definitely watery and trembling at the edges. 'Fine. Everything's fine.'

'You're not filling me with confidence, here,' Sam said and brushed a strand of hair from her cheek and chucked her under the chin gently. 'Something I should know?'

'I—,' she started, stopped, cast Dean a hard look. 'Dammit, Dean.'

He pulled his best innocent look. 'Hey, just tryin' to help.'

Lisa swatted at his arm but smiled encouragingly at Walker. 'Honestly, Sweetie, he was. He just thought it might be easier with us here, but it's up to you.'

Walker gulped a breath and looked up into Sam's face. She had been running scenarios in her head, but none of them seemed to work when faced with those big, worried, hazel eyes beaming at her.

'I'm pregnant,' she said.

Sam paled. 'You're…what?'

'Something in there you didn't catch, college boy,' Dean teased.

Sam jerked a scathing look at his brother that set Dean back and made him frown. 'Shut up.'

He turned back to Walker, eyes hard, almost angry, gone dark against his sudden pallor. 'You're…pregnant.'

Walker looked like she was about to cry, leaning back from the sharp look that she hadn't ever seen up close and personal on her husband before. She nodded slowly, reluctantly.

Sam stared at her.

Dean set his fork down. He was waiting for the punch line. The one where Sam suddenly broke out in dimples and showered his beautiful wife with kisses and went all sappy and tried to kiss her tummy. But it wasn't coming, and the hairs on the back of his neck were starting to stand up.

Sam pried his hand from Walker's grip and slid his chair back, eyes never leaving her until he turned and walked out of the room.

Walker did cry then, and Lisa was up and around the table and had her tucked up in her arms in a second.

Dean was a heartbeat behind Sam's abrupt exit only because he was so shocked by his brother's reaction. He threw his napkin on the table and stalked after his brother, catching up with him at the end of the corridor. He put a hand out.

'Sam, what the hell, man?'

Sam spun around, sweeping Dean's hand away with a defensive block as if Dean was going to throw a punch at him. 'Get your fucking hands off me!'

Dean almost backed up in shock, scowled hard at his little brother, and searched his pinched face for whatever the hell was causing this completely off the wall reaction.

'Sammy, what the hell has gotten into you?'

Sam's chest was heaving. His eyes were flashing angry and hurt, and Dean couldn't remember the last time he'd seen him quite so out of sorts.

'What's gotten into me?' Sam snapped, fists clenching at his side. 'Jesus Christ, Dean…what do you think has gotten into me?'

Dean raised his hands, palms out. 'Look, man. I get that it's a lot to take in, but fuck! I thought you'd be happy about this. Over the fucking moon, in point of fact. So, yeah! What the hell has gotten into you?'

'Happy?' Sam said incredulously. 'Happy? I'm suppose to be happy about bringing a baby into this fucked up world?'

That did set Dean back on his heels. Sam was the one who'd run away to get himself a 'safe' life, something as close to normal as a Winchester could ever live it, years ago when he'd gone to Stanford. A little later Yellow Eyes had pried the tasty morsel of Sam's intentions to propose to Jess out of his brother's thoughts, and Dean had naturally assumed that he'd been going for the gold. Wife, career, house, kids, the whole nine yards. So why the hell wouldn't Sammy be happy about a baby. 

'Sam, I—.'

'Dean!' Sam cut him off, getting right up in his face, gesticulating frantically. 'Two years ago you and I were laying in a fucking cemetery. Dead. Far as either of us knew, we weren't coming back from that.'

Dean rubbed at the stump of his ring finger on his left hand. Yeah, that day had kind of blown, he had to admit. It was even worse when he found out what Sam had done in shooting himself in the damn head in order to take himself off the game board as Lucifer's bitch.

'How exactly do you think that would have played if we _hadn't_ had our asses saved, and I'd had a kid back here waiting for me?' Sam asked. His breathing was getting erratic and his voice was breaking high like hysteria was setting in. His eyes were going kind of glassy, too.

Dean shot out a hand to grab Sam's shoulder as he keeled forward, then wrapped his arms around him and helped him down to the cold concrete floor, settling his back against the wall and pushing his head down between his knees.

'Breathe, Sammy. Jesus, little brother…just breathe, man,' Dean crooned softly as he rubbed slow, wide circles between Sam's shoulder blades.

Sam wasn't wrong. Dean had been harried by the same thoughts before they ever even embarked on their ludicrous mission to save their youngest brother from Lucifer's Cage. He'd worried himself damn near sick about something happening to him and Ben and Lisa being left behind. Alone. Again. He'd very nearly turned tail and run because he couldn't stand the thought of putting them through that again, and he sure as hell couldn't quit doing what he was doing. Hunting was in his blood, pure and simple. He couldn't turn his back on it when he considered how many people he and Sam saved but doing what they did. 

But in the end, he couldn't turn his back on his family either. Because that's what they had become. Family. Just as much as Sam was, Lisa and Ben were Dean's family, too, and he couldn't leave them behind and he couldn't give them up.

'It's a risk you have to choose to take, Sam,' Dean said quietly. 'It's big one. One I wasn't ready to face for a long, long time, but the payoff? God, Sam, you can't even imagine…'

Sam turned his head to the side, eyes red-rimmed and leaking tears across the bridge of his nose now, but his breathing was settling down. Dean continued to rub circles along his back.

'W-what do you mean?'

Dean smiled. It was a little sad, but mostly fond as his brain swam backward though all the memories good and bad, of his life together with his little brother, back to the moment Mary had first settled little Sammy in his arms while she held them both in the circle of her own in her lap and beamed at him and told him what a good big brother he was going to be. Turned out he was a lot more than that to Sam, but that wasn't a bad thing in Dean's book, never had been.

'Sam…holding you when you were tiny, knowing that you trusted me to take care of you, seeing you smile like I was the most important thing in the world to you—.'

'You were,' Sam said, voice rough and hoarse with tears.

Dean smiled bigger and ruffled Sam's hair briefly before resuming his massaging strokes. 'There's nothin' like it, Sam. Watching something that's part of you grow up, knowing that you're at least partly responsible—for the good and bad—and feeling that swell of love and pride in your chest as that person who used to rely on you for everything goes off on their own to make a life for themselves. 

'You weren't mine, Sam, but you were as close to a son as I'll ever get since I pretty much missed out on raising Ben and never got to see him as a baby. Seeing what you've become, through thick and thin…Sam, I'm proud of you. So proud. And I don't want you to miss out on that. I don't want you to go through your life never knowing what that feels like.'

Sam sniffled and wiped his nose on his sleeve. Dean chuckled and dug a handkerchief out of his back pocket.

'Dude. Where'd I raise you, in a barn?'

Sam grinned through the random tears that were still finding their way down his cheeks, and then sat up enough to wipe his face and nose. He was trembling beneath Dean's hand and he was still white as a sheet, but his heart had quit jack-rabbiting, and he was breathing easy and slow now. Dean sat back on his haunches.

'Look. I get it. I do. You think I wasn't shocked as hell when I discovered Ben was mine? Even though I'd suspected it for years? Still tossed me for a loop, I tell ya,' Dean said. 'But, Sam, this is a good thing, and I know Walker didn't do this on purpose. She's just as shell shocked as you are.'

'She talked to you?'

'Yeah, she did.' Sam scowled, but Dean shook his head. 'Man, she was worried sick about telling you. She just asked me how I thought you'd react.'

Sam swore softly and thumped his head against the wall. 'And I go and do this.'

'Well, I have to admit. I sure isn't what _I_ was expecting, and I'd say you're gonna have some explaining to do, and don't expect it to go easy. You pretty much just proved all her fears with that little escape trick you just pulled.'

Dean looked up at a small sound from the kitchen door and saw Lisa leaning around it. 

'Everything okay?' she asked cautiously, eyeing Sam's still pale face and twisted grimace.

Dean nodded. 'Yeah, will be. How 'bout you?'

Lisa came a few feet down the hall and kept her voice low when she spoke. 'I fixed her a cup of tea. She's settled down some, but…'

Sam looked up at her. 'I fucked up.'

Lisa shrugged, mouth twisting in a sardonic smile. 'Yeah. Pretty much.'

Dean pushed up off the floor and offered Sam a hand. 'Sooner solved the better, little brother. Now, get your ass back in there and do this right.'

Dean and Lisa followed Sam back to the kitchen, but stayed well back in the shadows outside the door and watched as Sam got down on his knees in front of Walker and took her hands in his and kissed her open palms and her wrists and each of her fingertips and begged her forgiveness in soft whispers that they couldn't make out over the distance. But whatever he said must have worked, because even though she started crying again, it was obvious they were happy tears. Sam pulled her close, lavishing small kisses all along her jaw and over the bridge of her nose and pressing one each to her closed eyes, then he slipped a hand between them and rested it over her stomach, let it drift a tiny bit lower.

Walker's eyes shot wide and her face split in a smile to light the whole of the Bunker for the next year as Sam spread his palms over her belly and bent down to press his lips against the barely perceptible swell.

Lisa sniffled a little and swiped a hand across her eyes. Dean reached around and pulled her back against his chest, rocking her a little. 

'I so knew he was going to do that,' he whispered with a smirk.

Lisa batted at the back of his hand where he held her around the waist. Dean stilled suddenly and let his own hand drift down a little. Lisa dragged in a breath and held it. 

'Dean?'

Dean buried his nose behind her ear and breathed softly. 'You know, we could…?'

Lisa started a little in his arms. 'I-I never really…I mean…'

'Only if you wanted,' Dean murmured as his palm stroked slowly over her abdomen. 'I didn't get to see Ben, and I'd really like…'

Lisa sighed, covered his hand to still it, and smiled. 'We'll see.'


	2. Chapter 2

Dean's knee was bobbing in time to the rapid-fire beat of his heart as he sat staring at the blurry watercolor done in pale pinks and lavenders and blues hanging on the opposite wall of the maternity ward waiting room. It was probably supposed to promote a soothing atmosphere but really made Dean just want to grab it and hurl it out the nearest open window.

Charlie appeared in front of him with a cup of coffee. He took it with a grumbled 'thank you.'

'Dean, relax. She's going to be fine. Women do this every hour of every day.'

Dean glowered at her. Charlie tried again.

'First labors are notoriously long. And hard. This really isn't unusual.'

'Not helping, Charlie,' Dean growled and checked his watch for the twentieth time that hour.

They'd gotten to the hospital at seven yesterday evening. Walker had gone into labor earlier that afternoon, but she'd insisted they wait to go to the hospital until the contractions were five minutes apart. It's what the hospital would have told them to do anyway. She and Sam both had been cool as cucumbers about the whole thing while Dean was the one pacing the rooms, wearing a groove in the concrete between the library and kitchen and den, until Sam had finally grabbed him by the elbow and hauled him down to the firing range to work off some of his anxiety, leaving Walker in Lisa's care.

The sunrise had come and gone and they were fast approaching the twenty-four hour mark from when Walker's labor had started. Dean had made two food runs, memorized the layout of the entire hospital, and interrogated two shifts worth of staff. Sam had disappeared behind the door across the hall more than ten hours ago and hadn't come out. At all. Lisa had followed about four hours ago, and he hadn't seen her since, either. Charlie and Dora had shown up about three hours ago, probably at Lisa's behest because she had a sixth sense when it came to him and knew he would either have his ear plastered to other side of the delivery room door, or he would be driving himself and the entire hospital nursing staff insane with his worrying. 

Dora was stretched out on the three seats across from him and smirking like a cat who'd just munched a canary.

'Enjoying this, are you?' Dean sniped at her and took a gulp of his coffee. It burned the roof of his mouth, but he hardly noticed.

Dora just shook her head. 'You're not even the daddy-to-be and you're nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof,' she mused. 'I think it's cute.'

' 'M not cute,' Dean growled. 

'Whatever,' Dora said and let her eyes drift shut and folded her hands behind her head.

'Don't torment him,' Charlie admonished. 'It's Sam. It's his baby brother, for Chrissakes, Dora. This is his first child. It only happens once, you know.'

Dora cracked an eye, somehow managed to drag up a smidgeon of contrition, and tipped her shoulder in a half shrug. 'Sorry.'

Dean just grimaced, almost sticking his tongue out at her, but she'd have loved that, so he kept it behind his teeth.

A sudden agonized cry came from behind the door that had Dean on his feet and reaching for the gun that wasn't at the small of his back. Thank Christ for small favors. Charlie was up and on him, shoulder pressing into his chest, as he pushed back at the sound of another long, drawn out cry that ended in a sort of aborted grunt.

'Jesus, fuck,' he breathed, running a hand down his face. Charlie reached up and grasped his face, turning his gaze down to hers.

'Dean, it's okay. This is good. It means it's almost over. It's okay,' she soothed.

Another almost guttural cry issued from behind the door, and then another. This last one rose, though, pitching high and frantic and it made Dean's teeth hurt to hear it, but at the end it was joined by another sound. A softer but much more constant, insistent sounding wail that built in volume over a course of seconds until it was piercing into a register that every dog for ten miles could probably hear clear as a bell and it was the most beautiful sound Dean had ever heard.

Charlie was laughing out loud and bouncing and clapping her hands while Dean stood shell shocked and wide eyed, staring at the door across the hall, just listening to that fierce, angry wail. So alive. So perfect. His heart felt like it was three sizes to big for his chest. He swore he was going to lose a couple of ribs to this incredible feeling filling him up. Filling him up and threatening to spill out his eyes, so he swiped at them with the back of his hand.

'Here.' 

Dean felt Dora standing by his shoulder, and he slid a look over to see her staring straight ahead but offering him a handkerchief, held between two fingers, from the pocket of her blazer. She wasn't smirking at him. She wasn't making fun. She was smiling, and when her eyes slipped sideways to take him in she just gave him a single nod.

'You did good, Uncle Dean.'

Dean accepted the handkerchief and blew his nose. Dora, true to form, pulled a face when he offered it back, and he grinned impishly at her.

It was another hour of pacing, with his bones itching to get inside that room and make sure everything was all right, but he had to go with 'no news was good news' and when Lisa finally appeared, grinning from ear to ear at the door and beckoned them inside, Dean sprang up like he'd been shot from a loaded gun.

Whatever evidence of the hours long, messy agony of childbirth there might have been in the room had been efficiently and thoroughly whisked away. Walker was tucked up in the bed, reclining on a nest of pillows, looking exhausted and pale but overall with a healthy glow, asleep as far as Dean could tell and good for that because she sure as hell deserved it as far as he could tell. 

His eyes scanned the room and lit on Sam sitting in the corner in a leather rocker/recliner pushed right up beside the bed, and in his arms was a bundle that seemed far too tiny and fragile in contrast to the huge chest it was nestled against. Dean's breath lodged on a lump in his throat that no amount of swallowing could dispel.

'Handkerchief,' Dora whispered snidely at his ear.

He ignored her.

'Hey, Dean,' Sam whispered, grinning hugely and motioning Dean over with a twitch of his chin. 'Come meet your new niece.'

Dean grinned like an idiot. 'A girl?'

Sam grinned back even wider. 'Bobby Ellen Ada Turner Winchester.'

'Damn that's a mouthful, Sammy,' Dean whistled low. 'You sure about that?'

'Yup.' Sam sat up a little as Dean came around the bed and flipped the edge of the embroidered white blanket aside for Dean to peer down at the little face all scrunched up in sleep and sucking on her tiny fist.

'Jesus, Sammy…she's beautiful,' Dean choked out. He cleared his throat and swiped at his eyes again. Sam looked up at him curiously.

'Dean?'

Dean shook his head but cupped a hand at the back of Sam's neck and squeezed hard. 'My little brother…all grown up. You did good, Sammy. Real good.'

Sam's smile softened and he turned a little into Dean's hand, letting his brother palm his cheek for a few seconds before he slid the hand up to give his hair the requisite ruffle with a watery smile of his own.

Dean leaned over his brother's broad shoulder and touched a finger to the silken pink cheek tucked up in the blanket. 'Hey there, baby girl,' he crooned softly. He slid a glance to Sam. 'Nothin' in the world like it, huh, Sammy?'

Sam shook his head in awe and near disbelief. 'Nope. Nothing at all.'

——

A few hours later, Walker woke up to her family gathered around her, all talking quietly and sharing fond memories over fresh cups of coffee. Sam leaned over the side of the bed and nestled their little girl against her breast so she could nurse and then curled his huge body protectively around them both. 

The worry had already begun to set in. He could feel it deep in his bones, and there were frantic moments between heartbeats that he was at a complete loss as to what to do next, but then he looked up and saw his family all around, curled as protectively around him as he was around his wife and new baby girl, and he knew that they would always be there to guide him when he needed, offer him love and support, and help him protect his new family with every last breath in their bodies. 

'She's beautiful, baby,' Sam whispered near Walker's ear. 'Just like you. I'm so proud of us.'

Walker grinned up at him and leaned in for a soft, gentle kiss.

'Love you, Blue,' Sam said, caressing her cheek.

'Love you, too.'

Sam settled himself against the headboard and watched his daughter suckle hungrily at her mother's breast, still awed and astonished at this tiny life he and Walker had created. He glanced up to catch his brother's eye and saw Dean's face was gone all blank and his eyes were wide in shock.

Lisa was leaning in at his shoulder whispering something in his ear, and Sam watched with increasing curiosity as Dean's lips twitched once, twice, and then curved up in a huge full blown grin that became a loud, long laugh.

'You're not shittin' me?' he almost shouted as he grabbed Lisa around the waist and dragged her shrieking and giggling across his lap. 

'Dean we're gonna have to work on your language skills,' Walker said, rolling her eyes.

'Don't bother,' Dora huffed. 'It won't work. You should hear some of the stuff Scarlet pipes up with after a weekend with him.

'Screw that!' Dean shouted with a whoop of joy. 'Sammy, we need another nursery.'

Sam's eyes got big and his heart tumbled over itself for a beat and then surged up into his throat. 'What?'

He looked anxiously from Dean to Lisa and back again, his own smile hopping at the corners of his mouth. 'Dean, really?'

'Lisa?' Walker asked, smiling brilliantly.

Lisa nodded.

'Oh, wow!' Charlie exclaimed and flopped in her chair. 'Oh. Wow!'

Dean folded Lisa close, kissing her fiercely, and then looked up over her shoulder at his little brother who was smiling for all he was worth across the room.

_I'm gonna be a dad, Sammy!_ He mouthed silently.

Sam smiled, felt like his face would crack with it, and mouthed back, _Yeah, big brother, you are. And there's nothin' like it._


End file.
